


verbatim

by glassalgae



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bad Writing, Character Study, Projection, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 20:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21062690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassalgae/pseuds/glassalgae
Summary: mostly resolves around asrapartially my own thoughts on certain things in projection





	verbatim

asra does not think himself to be forgiving.

he can be an angry person, one who has specific ways to be driven over the edge, and once he is he doesn’t forgive.

he has never forgiven lucio, because he did not so much as cross a boundary rather than leapt over it. it sickens him that some are still lenient to the man, a cruel man, most of all to asra himself. (it’s almost as if those people are saying he deserved it.)

first lucio took his best friend. lucio saw how their potential would grow and stunted and manipulated their growth into what he needed. he threatened asra to work for the crown through his magic else he would harm muriel, and muriel was a fragile man. he threatened muriel to fight for his life in the coliseum, to kill relentlessly or else he be killed himself, else asra would be harmed. it was a game that strung asra’s heart up. he whispered to the cards in the hope that muriel would be alright. and muriel was scarred physically, but mentally broken, and the fault was lucio’s.

asra thinks that those who excuse lucio are saying that muriel deserved it. it sets fire to his heart. 

second, but truly first (just not in asra’s eyes), lucio took his parents away. there is the excuse that he did it for the devil, but that is no excuse to asra. lucio began the pact. he wanted the devil’s chores for power. 

and so lucio took asra’s parents, he can’t even remember his age. five or six. lucio had the gall to rip a mother and a father away from their five-year-old. 

asra has no forgiveness for lucio. he would take pleasure in seeing lucio burn a second time.

asra has not truly forgiven julian. it was only partially his fault, but he was a doctor who let asra’s own lover fall ill to the plague, and die, to be burned and buried, which was one of the worst pains asra has ever felt, dragged him to desperation and longing and emptiness. julian had the edge to seek him, over and over, to push him. it wasn’t asra's  _ fault _ that julian was so insistent, that he gave in, let himself go. it was terrible for both of them. and all julian did was hate himself, wailing and whining day after day about his own problems. it was pathetic.

and even as julian is redeemable, asra can only speak to him so often. it hurts to know what bad a man has done, even if asra isn’t totally innocent, either.

he struggles to see the good in people, sometimes. sometimes it’s easy; he met portia, who was just a ray of sunshine, and she had so much positivity in her that surely some of it had to be a ruse, but a noble one. he had struggled to see nadia as good at first, but he eventually got past his notion of hating royals for a certain array of friends. muriel he has never questioned for a day, not even when they first met.

(and asra struggles to see the good in himself, too, he just won’t talk about it; he doesn’t think he’s ever cracked severely enough for another person to pry out every mistrust in himself that he has, not even muriel, because that’s not something anyone else can know. it’s like his own secret, how much he knows he isn’t a good person. he won’t fix himself, either, so he knows that makes him worse. when he was younger he used to sob so loudly that a storm brewed above wherever he was stowed away over his own insecurities, and now that's all locked away past his heart and even deeper, buried so heavily it only surfaces once every few years, only to be buried back down with more strength. 

maybe that’s why he struggles to see the good in others, too; he chalks it up to his time on the streets, and to people breaking his trust, but really, maybe it’s just insecurity. not that anyone would ever know.)

**Author's Note:**

> honestly idk if this should have even posted it's less like writing and more like my 2 am daily rant on why asra can't trust people


End file.
